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I realized very early in life what my abilities and limitations were, and foreign languages was definitely one of my limitations. With strenuous effort, I just barely passed my French class at Harvard so I could graduate.
I think London, New York, Paris, Milan, any big city has its own fashion. I don't know why they make such a big thing of Paris. I think maybe it comes from French New Wave films portraying the French girl as very feminine.
I think New Orleans is such a beautiful city. It looks like a fairytale when you walk through the French Quarter or the Garden District. There is such a lush sense of color, style, architecture - and the people themselves.
Fledgling designers need investment - but how much easier it is to put them in a dead man or woman's shoes, perhaps also backing the new designer's namesake line, but only as what the French call a 'danseuse,' a plaything.
I'd had a French education for three years, my father being in the army. From 9 to 12, I went to French school. I've been sort of part of the culture, part of the geography, since I was quite young - the imprint was there.
But at the time when he wrote, Englishmen, with the rarest exceptions, wrote only in French or Latin; and when they began to write in English, a man of genius, to interpret and improve on him, was not found for a long time.
In an Indian kitchen, the focus is on getting the job or dish done right in whatever way possible; however, in a French kitchen there's a clear hierarchy, and a chef has to know where their skills are and not go beyond them.
From the sea came a boat with some Israeli commando soldiers who took me by the commando boat to the yacht and put me on the yacht. In the yacht I asked people, who are you. And they said we are Israelis, French and British.
I ought to at least be able to read literature in French. I went to an enlightened grade school that started us on French in fifth grade, which meant that by the time I graduated high school I had been at it for eight years.
My main camera is a Nikon D3. I use a French camera from the 1800s for wet plate photography, I use a Hasselblad sometimes. But to me the camera really doesn't matter that much. I don't have a preference for film or digital.
When I heard Edward Snowden's story, it reminded me of my mother in a strange way. She was in the French resistance from early on, 1941. At that time, the Resistance were considered troublemakers - even traitors - in France.
My sisters like cooking at my place. It has a bit more room, and the food tastes a little bit better. A big pot of spaghetti and sauce, some warm French bread - works all the time. I think I've been eating pasta for 26 years.
My way of remaining French was the financing scheme I used for Quest for Fire, with Fox funds, since it started as a 100% American production. The film was not in French and yet was French in style, reflecting my personality.
It never ceases to surprise me, the people I get to work with. I'm in a French film with Sandrine Bonnaire? I adore Sandrine Bonnaire. I'm doing a picture for Robert Redford? The Sundance Kid? I have to pinch myself sometimes.
The modern tradition is the tradition of revolt. The French Revolution is still our model today: history is violent change, and this change goes by the name of progress. I do not know whether these notions really apply to art.
A British actor will savour every syllable of a Shakespearean line, while a French actor will drive to the end of a sentence or a speech with a propulsive rhythm: the thing you never say to a French actor is, 'Take your time.'
If I knew of something that could serve my nation but would ruin another, I would not propose it to my prince, for I am first a man and only then a Frenchman... because I am necessarily a man, and only accidentally am I French.
You need mystery. You actually do. I think that's what foreign women, French women in particular, are good at. There's still a sense that you need to keep some of the unknown because that's where the soul resides, or something.
I saw the finished version of 'The French Dispatch' quite a while ago, and it's just amazing. It's so incredibly strong and different... the way that Wes is expanding his talents to another dimension with each film is just wow.
I met my wife through playing golf. She is French and couldn't speak English and I couldn't speak French, so there was little chance of us getting involved in any boring conversations - that's why we got married really quickly.
When Picasso painted in Paris, was he a Spanish or a French painter? It does not matter, he was Picasso, whatever the influences surrounding him. He simply chose Paris because it was the ideal place for him to sell his creation.
For my Oxford degree, I had to translate French and German philosophy (as it turned out, Descartes and Kant) at sight without a dictionary. That meant Germany for my first summer vacation, to learn the thorny language on my own.
It's disrespectful to tell the French in the morning that you're going to reduce the debt, in the evening that you're not going to make any savings, and the next morning, after thinking about it, that you're going to spend more.
For you, it's a silent movie. For us, it's a talking movie because we had lines on set. There's a lot of noise on set and music. We spoke in English, in French, in gibberish, but it was very alive. The challenge was tap dancing.
I'm always feeling like I don't belong, no matter where I am. So I'm just searching for a family nonstop, and sometimes I find it in the mosh pit, sometimes I find it when I'm doing some French TV show with the president's wife.
Eastern Muslim countries, such as Indonesia and Malaysia, are relative success stories, as they are not afflicted by the Arab heritage of retreat and humiliation at the hands of the French, Spanish, British, Turks, and Persians.
A revolution in itself is not a blessing. The revolution accomplished by the French people is, indeed, a wonderful event - the most striking, in my opinion, in history; but it may lead to events which will make it a mighty evil.
I like to talk about my obsession with french fries because I don't want people to think that 'Let's Move' is about complete, utter deprivation. It's about moderation and real-life changes and ideas that really work for families.
At that moment of realization I knew that I had been blind because I had wished not to see; it was only then that I realised, at last, that all these dead men, French and Germans, were brothers, and I was the brother of them all.
It's funny because I remember when I came to the U.S. with 'Swimming Pool,' the movie did well, and it was great box office for a French movie, but I remember I was a bit upset because all people talked to me about was the nudity.
Nowadays I actually cook Italian-style food more than French heavy sauces. I make a good salad, some great roasted vegetables, grilled fish. I'm crazy about L.A. because at the farmers' market you find all kinds of wild mushrooms.
I was always interested in French poetry sort of as a sideline to my own work, I was translating contemporary French poets. That kind of spilled out into translation as a way to earn money, pay for food and put bread on the table.
I grew up in the Middle East. My folks have a very thick, kind of Oklahoma accent; that's where I was born. But we moved to the Middle East right after I was born, so I guess we were surrounded by English people and French people.
To an Ohio boy, it represented world-weary Gallic shrugs and Gauloises cigarettes, existentialist thinkers in berets and Catherine Deneuve in nothing at all - French was the language of intellectual power and effortless sex appeal.
I perfectly understood President Obama's attitude throughout the French presidential campaign. He had no reason to distance himself from Nicolas Sarkozy. It's the basic solidarity that leaders who worked together owe to each other.
I'm as frustrated with the French, I think, as anyone, but look, there's going to be other challenges and there are going to be other issues. As long as there's a war on terrorism going on, we're all going to have to work together.
When I was in high school, I took French. I barely passed and didn't learn anything at all. There was a joke among me and my friends in the class that nothing sounded more ridiculous than a guy with a country accent speaking French.
I studied French in high school and German in college and I once took a 24-hour Italian crash course. English has by far the most words in it of any other language. Our money might not be worth anything anymore, but the language is.
My grandfather was from outside of Moscow, and my grandmother, although some of her family were French, was from Odessa. They met as immigrants in New York in the early '20s. My mother's family came over from Ireland generations ago.
Antiwhite racism is developing in sections of our cities where individuals - some of whom have French nationality - contemptuously designate French people as gaulois on the pretext they don't share the same religion, color or origins.
I went to L'Academie de Cuisine in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and I think French cooking is the basis for a lot of classical cuisine, a foundation of a lot of other cuisines. That said, it's not the only way to approach a cooking career.
These irresponsible acts, which cannot have any justification whatsoever, are to be fully condemned. In these appalling circumstances, I want to offer you the most sincere condolences, both in my name and in that of the French people.
When I was 14 years old, I was with my parents at a restaurant. Some people came in and said, 'Would you like to be a model?' I went to see them, and they said, 'You have to lose seven kilos.' I said, 'No, I want to eat French fries.'
Personally, I don't give a toss about French viewers. I make films for foreigners - it's a bit like Ken Loach, who's not very popular in England but has had a lot of success in France. Cinema is always an experience in a foreign body.
I just always wanted to play guitar. I though that was, like, really dope. And then in high school, I learned how to play trumpet and, like, French horn because if the instrument's right in front of me, I'm going to just teach myself.
French schools follow a national curriculum that includes arduous surveys of French philosophy and literature. Frenchmen then spend the rest of their lives quoting Proust to one another, with hardly anyone else catching the references.
After the French Revolution, the world money power shifted from Paris to London. For three generations, the British maintained an old-fashioned colonial empire, as well as a modern empire based on London's primacy in the money markets.
It's funny because I think that both France and Britain are known for their distinctive styles, and everyone says that France is so chic and elegant but I think, more than that, French women are renowned for dressing in what suits them.
English has been this vacuum cleaner of a language, because of its history meeting up with the Romans and then the Danes, the Vikings and then the French and then the Renaissance with all the Latin and Greek and Hebrew in the background.
The readership of Victorian novels, when they were published, was much less diverse. People were probably white, and had enough money to be literate. Very often, there are phrases in Italian, German and French that are left untranslated.